BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — SpaceX has received approval from the Department of the Air Force to redevelop Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The company says construction to support future Starship operations is already underway, and the site will be capable of supporting up to 76 Starship/Super Heavy launches and 152 landings each year.
Dr. Don Platt with Florida Tech told us the scale of Starship marks a significant leap in launch capability.
He said, “This rocket is in terms of even thrust alone is almost twice as powerful as the Saturn V, which Starship is expected to debut on Florida’s Space Coast sometime next year.”
SpaceX continues to develop a version of Starship at its Texas Starbase as a Human Landing System for NASA’s Artemis Program.
The next major flight milestones tied specifically to HLS will be a long-duration flight test and an in-space propellant transfer flight test, both targeted for 2026.
Platt says SpaceX’s experience building pads in Texas gives the company a head start in Florida. “SpaceX has definitely learned how to build Starship pads with the things that they’ve been doing already down in Texas and so they can apply all of that knowledge here to the Space Coast. And with these pads coming online I think that there’s absolutely no doubt, in my opinion, again, assuming that the early 2026 test flights from Texas are successful, that we could see a starship here in the maybe about a year from now.”
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